i think i broke something
by micah-l-lucas
Summary: He thinks he sees an angel when he falls off the ladder. Clarke Griffin is no angel, but she'll take the compliment anyway.


Bellamy Blake dropped out of school when he was fourteen. He didn't want to; he didn't have a choice. Every day his mother slaved over a piece of scrap cloth, stitching it back together innumerable times for a meager eight dollars a week. He saw the way her lips had pursed when he hit a growing spurt and his coat had started to fall apart, leaving it both tattered and too small. The holes and tears she could fix, but the length? He'd need a new one. A new winter coat cost twenty-eight dollars; twenty-eight dollars they didn't have.

He remembered feeling the shame burn in his cheeks for making his mother worry about money. He'd put on his old coat and tugged at the sleeves, willing them to stretch out, but it was no use. They barely reached his wrists anymore. Aside from his need for a coat for the fast approaching winter, his sister needed new clothes of any kind. His mother had become so desperate that she'd begun fashioning dresses for her out of used flour sacks. His eight-year-old sister was so humiliated that she didn't want to leave the house.

His mother's wage barely covered their need for food, let alone clothes and bills. Even then he could still hear Octavia's stomach rumbling at night. He couldn't stand to see her so thin, so hungry, all the time. With a pang of sadness, he realized what he had to do. He dropped out of school, and joined the unemployment line. His decision hadn't gone without heavy objection from his mother, who wanted him to get a better education than she had. Deep down, she knew it had to be done.

At the time, work was scarce. Jobs were being snatched up at every corner, though there was one that people always seemed to hesitate at. Construction work was dangerous, but the pay was better than his mother's and he figured it would help. With few willing to take on the challenge, they could hardly turn away a fourteen-year-old with such alacrity to work. They'd given him a pair of work boots and a hat, and stuck him with one of the older men to show him how it was done.

When Bellamy had shown up at the construction site, he was assigned to a man named Cage. Cage was a pale man wearing overalls and construction boots, his dark brown hair a mess from being up so high in the wind. Cage had looked him up and down before scoffing, thinking that the boy had been sent as a joke. Once Bellamy had explained that it wasn't a joke (numerous times) Cage finally told him to follow him, and started telling him to help screw in bolts and hand him tools. The job was pretty painless—that is, until they had to work on the higher beams.

Cage didn't seem to react to being up so high, but the minute Bellamy looked down to see the skyscrapers below him, he froze. People and cars from that height were so tiny it made him feel like he was watching ants on an anthill. He fought the urge to wrap his arms around the beam and stay there until someone had to pry him off.

"Bellamy," Cage snapped, jogging him out of his fear-stricken haze. "Hand me the god damn bolts."

Cage, along with everyone else who worked at the construction site, was familiar with Aurora Blake and her children. Aurora was known for having two children from two different men—one of them being Filipino. Bellamy Blake couldn't hide his mixed heritage if he tried; his thick, curly black hair and darker complexion were a dead giveaway. Though Cage or any of the other construction workers had yet to bother him about it.

Bellamy did as he was told, and handed Cage the bolts with shaking hands, nearly dropping one of them. Cage sighed, and then mumbled under his breath about having to train the new guy. Bellamy quietly sat on the beam with Cage, gripping onto the edges for dear life, praying he didn't fall.

Occasionally, Cage will turn to Bellamy and tell him to watch as he demonstrates something; usually something simple, like a way to make sure the bolts in the framework are tightened just right. Cage's hand had formed to fit the wrench after so many hours holding it, and had explained it would be easier if Bellamy's did the same.

Eventually, after being scorched by the sun for five hours, when the sun was just above them, Cage announced that they were taking a break. Bellamy sighed, his shoulders sagging in relief. His knuckles had turned white from gripping the beams so tightly, and he relished in the thought of setting foot on the ground again. He and Cage climbed down the metal framework and once they'd reached the ground, Bellamy followed Cage to go get his lunch. Cage had kept his things away from the others, and when asked, had only muttered something about thieves.

As soon as Cage has his lunch, he turns back around and starts heading towards the framework again. "Where are you going?" Bellamy asked, and Cage turned around to answer.

"We take our breaks on the beams."

Bellamy's heart skipped a beat. Dread filled his stomach once he realized he'd be eating lunch up on one of those beams. The thought of sitting still up on the beams was enough to make him panic, but trying to keep his balance while he ate? That was a different story. Nevertheless, he followed Cage back up the framework and ate lunch with everyone else. He watched as some of them read newspapers and laughed and shared cigarettes while his hands shook as he tried to bring the sandwich to his mouth. Some of the crumbs fell from his food, and he watched them fall hundreds of feet onto the city. The job made him want to vomit; now he saw why not many people were desperate enough to take it.

He heard what the other workers said about his mother when they thought he wasn't listening. He heard what they said about his father, calling him a Flip, and it made the blood rush to his ears and his fists clench. If he wasn't scared stiff by the height, he'd hit them with every ounce of his strength. Though, there was something that kept him coming back.

His construction job paid almost eighteen dollars a week, something that helped the family funds immensely; his mother's job had paid just over eight dollars weekly. She found ways to make extra money—Bellamy pretended not to see the men slink away from his mother's room at night, when she thought he was asleep.

He'd come home after his first week—exhausted, sweaty, and shook up—and handed over his earnings to his mother. Aurora had looked at the money in her hand before smiling at her son.

"Thank you for doing this, baby," she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. The job may have rattled his nerves, but it kept his little sister in school and in clothes, and fed her empty stomach. That was all that mattered to him.

Within the next week or two, he'd finished his on the job training and was able to join the other workers to help lay out the framework. He found himself in a state of hyper-focus all the time; always alert, always getting the job done quickly because he couldn't wait to get back on the ground. Eventually, the workers told him, he'd get used to the heights. Once he was trained enough the idea of falling would seem impossible.

With time, he did get used to the heights. He became more at ease working on the frameworks of buildings, and found himself falling into some sort of routine. He's actually _good_ at it. The lack of constant fear makes it easier to get through the week, and the paychecks come every Sunday. It becomes normal for him.

He continues to work at the construction site for a year—two years. Three years, and before he knows it he's been working in construction so long he hardly remembers what it was like to sit through a class lecture. His baby sister is almost through with high school. The construction work isn't his only job now; he chases off boys who like his sister a little too much. He's twenty-three and he doesn't know what he's going to do once she graduates—they'll never have college money for her.

Bellamy thinks about this while he's at work; he's been assigned to a new site. Finn Collins, an eighteen-year-old who's fresh out of on-the-job training, has to be told _five times_ that there is a very specific way of laying out the framework and sizing together the rooms. Bellamy is working on the second level of the unfinished building when Finn is asking him questions again. Bellamy sighs, and steps onto the ladder to go and see what Finn wants this time. At least, it's what he's doing when his foot slips a few rungs down, and with a jolt of panic, he falls from the ladder.

* * *

Clarke Griffin is eleven when her father loses everything in the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Money had never been an issue; at least not before then. She was the daughter of an accomplished politician and a renowned doctor—she was practically born with a silver spoon in her mouth. It's her eleventh birthday: October 24, 1929. That day she sees a man jump from a six story building, but doesn't see him land—her mother's hand finds her eyes before she can. She isn't the one to find her father with a pistol in his mouth; her mother doesn't tell her about it for years to come.

Her mother sticks around after the Wall Street Crash. They have to sell the house. Clarke remembers watching the moving men taking the furniture from her room out to a van. They have to sell the more valuable items, like the paintings her mother had purchased years before. _Calypso,_ Clarke's favorite, is one of the first to go. Her mother explains that she's selling the paintings and the more expensive things so that they can afford another house. Clarke doesn't see why; they had a perfectly good house. The only thing that was different was that now her father wasn't there.

Clarke fumes about leaving her home, and is less than pleased with their new living space. They live in a two bedroom apartment, the only thing they can afford now that all the money is gone. Abby Griffin still has her job, thankfully, but the pay is still not enough to afford their old house. Clarke sulks on the outside steps for the majority of the day; the have the move, her father is gone and she doesn't know why, and her favorite painting's been sold. But some good came out of it; that is the day she meets her best friend, who steps outside his house and peeks at the blonde-haired girl next door with wide brown eyes.

Wells Jaha has lived in the apartment his entire life. Due to their close proximity and Wells' crush on the girl, they soon became friends. Clarke enjoyed being around Wells, and throughout the years they lived in the apartment, could talk to him about everything. She told him about her eleventh birthday; the day she'd seen the man jump out of the window and the day her father had mysteriously disappeared. Wells was good at listening to stuff like that. In turn, Wells told Clarke about his mother, who'd died when he was small.

Clarke spent the majority of the years in that apartment with Wells; he'd learned to play chess from his father, and had taught it to Clarke so they could play with one another. Wells lived in his apartment with his father, who'd owned a chess board that was so old the checkers were fading. The chess pieces were worn down from hundreds of games; years of father and son sitting in on rainy days. In turn of Wells teaching her how to play chess, she taught him what she knew about art.

Wells had done a great deal of looking after Clarke after she'd moved into the apartment, whether she needed it or not. The other dirty boys in the apartments liked to chase after her with their grabby hands, and he lost count of how many of them he'd chased off with an old baseball bat. Clarke hardly knew any of them pursued her, though she was aware of a few; Wells tried his best to keep them away. Wells really does love her; once he she tries to teach him to draw, he trades his metalwork dog for a new set of charcoal pencils for her. Clarke's eyes light up when he hands them to her, and she can't thank him enough.

Clarke particularly likes being with Wells because he makes it easier to forget her old life. The life where paintings hung on the white walls and the black and white checkered floor was always waxed and without any scuffs. The life where her father was there every day; she still didn't understand why he'd disappeared. Wells doesn't ask a lot about where she used to live or what it had been like, and she is grateful for it.

When Clarke turns fifteen, her mother decides that it's time for her to be apprenticed at the hospital. Clarke held mild interests in becoming a nurse, though much would've preferred to become an artist. However, she had to tag along with her mother whether she liked it or not.

Abby Griffin is one of the most renowned doctors in the state, and also one of the first woman to become a doctor. For the first few days, Clarke mostly follows her around while her mother shows her the basics: treating infections, dressing wounds, checking for concussions… By the time the first week is over, she's already half-convinced that she'll never be as good a doctor as her mother.

"It's not something you can learn overnight," her mother assures. "It'll take time. Trust me, you'll get the hang of things."

Abby brings Clarke to work with her for the remainder of the business week. She doesn't mind so much; she's only confused by the fact that her mother would wait until then to start taking her to work and teaching her about medicine. As a child, Clarke had been encouraged by Abby to pursue her dream of being an artist, but now she wasn't sure whether or not her mother stood by that decision anymore. When Clarke finally had a moment alone with Wells, she spoke to him about it.

"I don't understand," she said. "She's never really cared about whether or not I'm a doctor."

Wells thought for a minute. "Maybe it's just a Plan B," he said. "In case you being an artist doesn't work out. That way you'll have something to fall back on."

"Maybe," Clarke said, after thinking it over. "But me wanting to be an artist has never really bothered her before. I don't see why she'd change her mind now." Clarke started tracing her name in the table with her finger. _CLARKE_ was now spelled out in the dust; after she was finished, she used to palm of her hand to wipe it away. A clean slate—the invisible letters of her name a ghost.

Despite her confusion about the whole situation, Clarke continues to work at the hospital with her mother. She learns more about medicine, and after a year or two is able to treat the patients on her own; without her mother's help. When Wells turns eighteen in August of 1936, he announces that he's enlisted in the army. When the words register, Clarke is shocked, then confused, then furious.

"What do you mean you've enlisted?" she asked, her eyes on fire. "You'll get yourself killed!"

"We're not at war, Clarke," Wells had said calmly. "They're stationing me at the military base in Brooklyn. I won't be that far away." Wells had smiled faintly. "At least when I come home I'll be able to protect you better."

The week following his birthday, Wells boards a train and leaves for military training. By that time, Clarke's anger has mellowed, but not significantly. She refuses to acknowledge the fact that Wells would be fighting in combat if the United States ever did encounter a war; that would mean there was a possibility of Wells not coming home, and she couldn't have that.

She doesn't go to the hospital in order to go to the train station. Thelonious is standing to her right, hugging his son goodbye, and speaking in a low tone that Clarke can't hear. Once Wells finishes his goodbye to his father, he turns to Clarke. For a moment, neither of them move. Her best friend of seven years is leaving. She feels the tears well in her eyes as he steps in to hug her.

"Come home," she says.

"I will," he says back. "I promise."

Wells pulls away and gives his friend one last smile before boarding the train. The entire train station waves goodbye to their loved ones heading for Brooklyn, but Clarke doubts any of them is waving goodbye for the last time. That was what set her and Thelonious apart; they didn't know if they would see Wells again.

In a few months, when she's eighteen, she's working at the hospital as a nurse instead of an apprentice. She earns her own money instead of being paid under the table by her mother. Her shift is slightly different; she works from the early afternoon to the late evening, because the shifts are uneven and she can't work a full day-shift or night-shift just yet. She likes to walk to work; it gives her time to think. Wells crosses her mind more than once—she is still just a little bitter about his decision to leave, but she understands.

It is Wells she is thinking about when she approaches the construction site—just in time to see a worker slip a few rungs down on a ladder and fall to the concrete below.


End file.
